Archive for Mystery

An old dark house mystery, starring George Zucco, a character actor supposedly know for his sinister characters, but I saw nothing of that in Dr. Renault’s Secret. Directed by Sam Newfield, a director of legendary output of over two hundred and fifty movies, sometimes as much as twenty per year. He even used two pseudonyms, so they would hide the fact. In an interview, his son tells how the New York office of PCR, the poverty row studio that produced most of his movies at the time, not knowing the fact, called his brother, the head producer or something, in for the meeting, and said that Sam is good, but he should use Sherman Scott and especially Peter Stewart more, ’cause they are simply better. Scott and Stewart were of course Newfield’s pseudonyms. About his movies, Martin Scorsese said: “Newfield is hard, that’s a hard one, you can’t do too much of that.” because he often seems absolutely detached from the images that appear on the screen, as if he is an observer rather than a participant. And how he wouldn’t be considering the fact that most of the movies took less than a week to shoot. But being what it is and clocking at an hour, how bad can it be? Continue reading →

First of the Inner Sanctum films based on a radio program of the same name, by Universal Pictures. Starring Lon Chaney, Jr. who I saw in Bert I. Gordon’s The Cyclops, where I enjoyed his performance. But that’s fourteen years later, and you know how it’s with character actors, they seem to get better with age and tend to have little of charisma when young. Also with J. Carrol Naish, a man I saw in Dr. Renault’s Secret and enjoyed his performance greatly. Continue reading →

An WW2 horror mystery with a really lame poser, cast and crew not ringing any bells. Movie is weirdly clocking at less then an hour, but I love that, the shorter the better, while still being a feature, of course. What’s unfortunate, if you try to find out anything about the movie on the Internet, you’ll surely know Dr. Renault’s secret before even watching the movie, since everyone’s comparing the movie to a certain work of literature. But what got me somewhat excited is that it was released in the Fox Horror Classics box alongside Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Dragonwyck, a brilliant gothic film by a man who made the absolute classic All About Eve only four years later. Hope it’s in the box with a reason. Continue reading →

More 60s sexploitation schlock from Something Weird Video. This time packed as a cheap Psycho knock off, even though the internets say that it’s about a dead woman who returns from the grave to wreak vengeance upon her enemies. Just to clear that up, so you would buy it expecting a zombie horror, it’s a mystery thriller, or at least it wants to be. Continue reading →